Thanksgiving Recap

I realize it is a bit late to share our Thanksgiving meal with you, but it has taken me a while to be able to sit down and sort through the photos from those wonderful few days. Here's some photos of the yummy food.

My contribution was purple mashed potatoes and cornbread dressing. Since my mom was making Yukon gold potatoes as well, I roasted a head of garlic and added that to the purple ones to distinguish them from the others in flavor. Here's one of the blue potatoes when peeled. They had a white later immediately under the skin and then purple underneath. However, when peeled, the spots came from where eyes might develop in other circumstances. I was taken by the pattern on this one.
Next the purple mashed potatoes on the day of the feast.
And then the next day. We were puzzled how they deepened in color overnight.
The wonderful turkey.
The Herbed Oatmeal Pan Bread.
And the entire spread along the breakfast bar: cranberry sauce, turkey, pruple mashed potatoes, Yukon gold mashed potatoes, peas, blueberry jello salad, cornbread dressing, sweet potato casserole & rolls.I neglected to photograph the pies, but there were 6 for the 10 of us: 2 pumpkin, 2 pecan, and 2 chocolate. They were all wonderful.

We had so much food we enjoyed an essential identical meal the next day for lunch. Then we cut up the carcass and made two pots of stock. I took home half and left my mom half. We thoroughly enjoyed a turkey-barley soup when we returned home.

Ornaments

Here are more photos of the mini-mitten ornaments. Here is the first set on the Christmas tree. I ran out of this red yarn and had to buy more. I found a self-patterning sock yarn that has made quite interesting results, and these are two of the best. I still have quite a few more pairs to go, and I'll be excited to see how the others turn out with this yarn.

Sweet Potato Dumplings

Earlier this week I made jaoizi (Chinese dumplings ) with my class as part of our study of China. We had left over dumpling wrappers and my husband suggested we fill them with sweet potatoes. I thought goat cheese would go well with the sweet potato, and then looked at recipes for Sweet Potato Ravioli for inspiration. It's hard to say whether we ate dumplings or ravioli for dinner, but either way they were so sweet and good and amazing that we'll be definitely making them again. Below is the rough recipe.

Sweet Potato Dumplings

16 dumpling or wonton wrappers
1 sweet potato
2-3 tablespoons goat cheese
1 tsp maple syrup
dash of nutmeg
salt & pepper
3 tbsp butter
4-6 fresh sage leaves, chopped

Wash the sweet potato but do not peel. Wrap in foil and bake for 45 minutes in a 375 degree oven until flesh is soft. Cut open and let the the flesh cool. Scoop it out and mash it in a bowl. Let cool. Add 2-3 tablespoons of goat cheese, maple syrup, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Stir together. Place one teaspoon of mixture inside dumpling wrapper. Dip your finger in a bowl of water and run it around the edge of the wrapper. Fold in half and then pinch in folds from each side.

Bring pot of water to a boil. When boiling add salt and dumplings. Stir to prevent sticking. Return the water to a boil and cook until dumplings rise to the top. Meanwhile melt the 3 tablespoons of butter in a skillet. Let the butter begin to brown before adding the chopped sage. When the dumplings are done, use a slotted spoon to ladle them into the butter. Here they are just after going into the skillet.
Let simmer and brown a bit on one side before turning to brown on another.
Let cool a bit before eating as the sweet potato holds the heat well.
Eat with your fingers :)

Curried Lentils

This recipe is an improvisation that we've made a few times. I use French Green Lentils (also called French Puy Lentils) because they keep a nice firm texture and don't get too mushy. Each time it's a bit different based on the spices we add and the left-over tomatoes. This time the tomatoes were from my canning this summer and had been pasta sauce the night before, so there was a little garlic, red pepper and herbs already mixed in. In the photo below, we served the lentils with a Kashi 7 grain pilaf which we found on-sale at our local Co-op. They are also good with rice, couscous, or another whole grain.
Curried Lentils

Ingredients

1 cup French Green Lentils
water
olive oil
onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 inch ginger, grated or chopped
1-2 tsp garam masala or other spice mix
1 tsp ground cumin
ground cayenne pepper(if you like to add heat)
about 14 oz crushed tomatoes (or tomato sauce)
generous handfuls of kale or swiss chard,roughly chopped
salt, pepper

In a small pot, place 1 cup lentils and 4 cups water. Bring to a boil and then simmer 20 minutes until lentils are tender.

Meanwhile in another pan, saute the onion, garlic, and ginger in a dash of olive oil. When the onions are clear, add the spices and stir for one minute. Pour in the tomatoes and bring to a simmer to thicken. Don't let the tomato mixture get to dry. Turn it off if it is thickening too much and the lentils are not yet done.

When the lentils are done, drain them and then add to the the tomato mixture. Stir well and return to a simmer. Add the chopped kale and cover to cook the greens. Taste and adjust for salt and pepper. If the mixture is too acidic, add one small teaspoon of sugar.

Serve with rice or other grain.

The Last Harvest of 2008

We had our first ground-covering snowfall on Sunday night into Monday. I got home Tuesday while there was just a bit of daylight still in the sky and went to check on the kale and Brussels sprouts. The snow killed the last bit of Swiss chard, and buried the tiny carrots that were not worth trying to dig up. In between the Brussels sprouts and kale, and to the right of the kale you can see my second planting of Brussels sprouts. The large Brussels sprouts were transplanted into the garden on May 8th, as medium-sized seedlings from a co-worker. My first indoor seedlings weren't successful and so I re-seeded on May 10th and not transplanted into the garden until June 16th. The month and a week made a big difference in the plants progress. The later transplants never got enough sun because the kale and surrounding plants were already taller. If I transplant later again, I'll need to make sure they get enough sun.

Some of the kale looked as though it was burned where the snow had settled on the top. I realized that I wouldn't be home during the daylight during the rest of the week and so I harvested the Brussels sprouts for dinner. Though they were tiny (most smaller than the last batch) I harvested 9 ounces of them. They were delicious.Tonight I went out in the dark to pick the last of the kale, and my husband graciously came with me to hold the flashlight. The last small bit of the tender inner leaves went into a Curried Lentils dish.

Christmas Ornaments

Much of my canning enterprises from this summer was with Christmas gifts in view. Now I'm hoping to add some home-made ornaments to those gifts as well. I searched on Ravelry last night and found this pattern for mini mitten ornaments. I should have sat down to lesson plan, but instead I knit up one of these mittens. They are a quick and easy use for last little bits of sock yarn and are knit on size one needles. The first one took me 50 minutes. I did some work for school and then finished another mitten before bed. I think I'll be making quite a few of these in the next weeks. They are very easy and very cute! A picture on the tree will follow when we get a tree.